Sunday, February 7, 2010

The Red Wine Saga - continued...



As you'll notice, there is about 1 cup of wine less in this picture than there was when I first posted about this nasty ass bottle of red wine that someone left at my house. I did not drink it. I DIDN'T. It tastes horrible and makes me want to heave every time I even smell it. I cooked with it. THAT is how a cup of it left the bottle.

I was perusing recipes on allrecipes.com and wanted to make something besides just sauteed chicken breasts with the typical seasonings and I noticed that this Chicken Marsala recipe had a ton of positive ratings - 5 star ratings to be exact. Like 89 million people had made it and given it a 5 star rating - it MUST be GOOD! I better make it. So I looked up Marsala, read enough to find out it was a red wine and decided I'd just use that shit over the dryer. I got busy dredging my chicken breasts and seasoning them and then I noticed the recipe also called for cooking sherry. Well, I'd already finished that off for breakfast earlier in the day, so I figured I'd just use ALL wine. Good enough.

Well, just for good measure, I texted my brother, who's pretty adept in the way of culinary art and asked him if he knew what a good substitute for Marsala might be. I figured if there's a substitute for buttermilk, there's certainly one for Marsala. He texted back and said, "Red Wine?" DUH! I knew that dumbass. I was getting bored with him at that point, so I just googled it myself. Then I texted back and said, "I'm using Pinot Noir with brandy - TAKE NOTES!" See, I'm older than him so that makes me quite a bit smarter, naturally. THEN, he texts back with some more dribble, something along the lines of if I'm making a dish, I should have the ingredient that is in the NAME of the dish. Then cites an example of mac -n- cheese with no cheese is really just mac. Jesus, he bores me with details - I told him just that, too.

Well, I cooked up my chicken breasts, I added my mushrooms - it smelled wonderful!! Then I added the wine/brandy concoction to the pan. The whole house reeked of rotten grapes and cough syrup. The stench was about more than I could stand. I figured it must taste better than it smelled though - so I took a bite. BLEGH - bitter. I added a palmful of refined sugar. Tasted again - BLEGH - still bitter. Hey! I know! Maple Syrup - that's what it needs!
Seriously? Maple syrup? How many of those whiskeys had I had already? It was only 6:00 - I couldn't have had more than 1, but maple syrup? When is the last time anyone added maple syrup to ANYTHING? But I opened my keg o' Mrs. Butterworth compliments of Sams Club, and gave the ol' gal a good squeeze over the pan and whisked it all around. And tasted it. OMG - this shit was going from bad to worse in no time at all. I better stop while I'm ahead. The recipe said to let it simmer for only 10 minutes - but it still reeked and tasted like that horrid red wine, so I let it go for 20 just for good measure.

I hesitantly dished it up for the girls - I didn't really want to listen to their whining about how awful it was while seated at the table, so I proclaimed it was a special night and they could eat in front of the TV and I would be serving them - they didn't even have to get up! Man were they excited! I didn't call the husband in from the garage either - instead, I plated some up for myself and sat at the table - alone. Ashamed. Embarrassed. Humiliated. Disgusted. And sick to my stomach. All of a sudden, I heard Daughter #1 yell, "MOM! This is REALLY good! Thank you!"
I think she must have been drunk.

No comments:

Post a Comment